


Adrift

by jazzfic



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 01:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18297944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzfic/pseuds/jazzfic
Summary: Certainty is like love, there’s too much risk in it.(Ash escapes, and lives.)





	Adrift

**Author's Note:**

> Post episode 2.11 Perpetual Infinity. In which I am reminded that writing between episodes is hard.

Ash Tyler is drifting.

There’s a moment when he feels like stardust, when he can see his own limbs chalked frozen as the pod malfunctions and he’s sucked into space. But then a shrill wail cuts into his ears and he jerks back into consciousness, realising it’s the life support beeping in protest, and instead of sending out a cry for help, in his blind panic he’s been giving the computer orders to his own end. 

Whoever Section 31 contracted to design their ships must really have a thing for blue lights and shiny surfaces, Ash thinks, struggling to his knees. Through a fresh haze of pain he jabs in the auto-pilot sequence and sets the distress beacon on, before slumping back to the floor. That, and razor sharp edges which hurt like a goddamned bitch when a sentient AI decides it doesn’t like you. Bleeding out into the void, alone, isn’t exactly how he’d planned on ending it. 

It’s fitting, though. The universe and all they hate would say it’s every blessed thing he deserves. He’s the master of self-preservation, after all; there is no chance of collateral here. Nobody he can hurt again. 

And he’s drifting. Still.

He glances down at the pink-tinged red seeping through the bandage. He doesn’t have another to replace it, so he unzips his jacket and pulls it down part way until he has a bunch of material with which he can apply pressure, all the time swearing silently at his employer’s belief that obviously all operatives welcome death before betrayal of secrets, so no point in keeping a well stocked first-aid kit. Ash counts his breaths. He’s surprised at the sheer intensity of it; Klingon physiology has probably saved his course, but human memory is going to make him suffer for it. Good, he thinks. _Good._

The comm crackles. It’s Bryce’s voice, at least, he thinks it is – _this is the Discovery, stand by, specialist, we have you_ – but he isn’t sure. He can’t be sure. Certainty is like love, there’s too much risk in it. 

_Time for sleep, Ash._

No, it’s his mother’s voice, chiding him for forgetting his homework and bringing him sweet cocoa before bed. 

_You have me. Right now._

No –

It’s Michael Burnham. Michael, a shifting holo figure. Michael, fierce and fractured, crying in his arms and as real as anything he’s known, everything he’s been sure of.

Ash runs a hand over his torso, to the badge where the points of the delta press into his skin. He closes his eyes and lets the drift take him.

 

*

 

“Tyler.”

White noise turns into a hum, then into a voice. He peels his eyes open. Culber, uniform pristine and body new, stands sentry-like with an unreadable expression by the bio-bed. Ash almost laughs. The void and the cosmos have conspired to heighten this situation to eleven, with irony being at the top of the list. Perfect.

“You’re lucky we got to you when we did,” Culber says evenly, looking down at the medical tricorder. “In more ways than one... were you fully human I’d say we’d be running scans over a corpse right now.”

Ash tries not to wince. In this life he’s got to take every sharp word the doctor says, and willingly. “Leland --” he begins.

Culber holds a hand up. “The captain will fill you in on that. But for what it’s worth, we did not detect any nano particles at the point of entry or anywhere else inside of you. Control has its body now. I guess it didn’t need another.”

Well. There’s a new exciting thing he hadn’t considered in all the fun and panic. “Lucky me,” Ash mutters.

The doctor’s eyes don’t quite meet his, but there’s a jab of empathy in his voice. “Lucky you.” Something catches his attention; Culber switches off the tricorder and steps away. Suddenly Ash feels fingers threading through his, and there’s a new visitor standing by the bed. 

“Hey...”

And just like that, there it is again, the guilt. Stomping over his wounded body and wounded heart where for the last year he’s ramshackled a wall and told himself over and again to not _feel this, to need her,_ because he can’t risk it. She shouldn’t be here. Her mother not seen in twenty years has just been flung forth again to the future with no means of return, and yet she’s standing here like he’s her centre of balance. And not only that, there is meaning, there is love in her eyes that he just... he should not be taking. 

He should not be taking up a part of her like this. 

Except...

Except there’s muscle memory and damned feelings he has no resistance to, so Ash turns his hand palm up and squeezes her fingers. “I’m sorry, Michael.” He means Dr. Burnham, but also for his first foray into espionage. Which failed, and which he’s truly thankful for failing; but the fact that doing his only given job means slipping more truths away when all he wants is to be open with her, well, it hurts more than metal plunging inches into his belly. 

“I know.” She blinks quickly and sniffs. “Can we... let’s not talk about that now. I just want to sit.” 

Underneath the rawness in her voice there’s a strength that’s he realises he’s not seen before. Something of her mother, a new determination, and Ash thinks, quite fiercely and quite suddenly, that if he ever had or could love a strength like that it might well sustain him until death. Real, proper death, not one he’s been telling himself he deserves, but one far away, with a fuller life made. _You were never the red angel,_ he wants to say. _Just Michael. And were I drifting still, I would find a way to steer towards you._

He doesn’t, of course. He’s not yet claimed that place where he can take and give, not with her, or anyone. Not yet. But he smiles and thinks on it some more.

“Okay. I’m up for that,” says Ash, after a bit, when he thinks he can see her smiling back. “No talking.”

Culber, who had been moving about watching and undoubtedly taking in this strange piecemeal of a conversation, produces a stool, and places a steady hand on Michael’s shoulder until she sits down. His gaze flashes over the two of them and for a moment he looks as if he’s going to say something, but then he’s gone. Meanwhile Ash brushes his thumb over warm skin, feeling less incomplete, if that were possible, a little more certain; though how and on what, he’s pretty sure he couldn’t say. 

Maybe thinking is overrated. Maybe he should stop for a bit. 

So he does, and they drift, together, in the quiet.


End file.
